Flintoff Tells the World He is Back With a Wicket and a Scream

Andrew Flintoff threw back his head and screamed at the night sky like a werewolf. In his comeback match and his first home one-day international for two years he had already bowled heroically fast. But now, with the third ball of his sixth over, he had a wicket and he wanted to shout it to the world.

The first man to congratulate him, inevitably, was Kevin Pietersen. But Flintoff, his reverie unbroken, screamed on and was heard even above the din of a packed Rose Bowl. He did not bat yesterday and took only one wicket, that of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, yet his impact on this England team was immeasurable. He conceded only 12 runs from his seven fiery overs and in one over every delivery was measured at above 90mph. He was not exactly feeling himself back into cricket.

Until then Jimmy Anderson had appeared England's best bowler, achieving little swing in the chilly dampness but bowling fast enough to trouble India's batsmen. He took four wickets, including his 100th in ODIs, but afterwards it was Flintoff who won special praise from the captain, Paul Collingwood. "Freddie was fantastic," he said. "He's a world-class player and I'm glad to have someone like that back. You could tell by the way he was running in . . . The areas Freddie bowls in and with that kind of pace makes it very difficult to score. The opening bowlers did such a good job and then we had Freddie to come on straight after. That put them under a lot of pressure."

Collingwood described it as "one of England's best performances for some time. The way the batters went about it, being positive all the way through the innings, building a good base, the way the bowlers went out there, the plans that we had, the catching, the fielding . . . it was just a very good performance. India are a very good one-day side but it can be a hard game if you're put under pressure and that's what we did tonight."

This was only the ninth ODI at the Rose Bowl and Ian Bell admitted: "We weren't too sure what a good score was. We just wanted to get as many and as quickly as possible. I came in with a bit of confidence after The Oval. The key for me today was my shot selection and deciding where I was going to hit the ball."

India's captain, Rahul Dravid, said: "England played the perfect one-day game. They batted well, with a couple of the guys going on to make big scores. And then they bowled well and got some good bounce off the wicket."